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Why I write so much about the Pacific North West, plus an odd intro to Sasquatch:

My wife and I both grew up in Detroit, now the synonym for rust belt failure.  Following college and graduate school, we had lived in an inner suburb of Detroit for 35 years, working, saving, living the unexceptional lives of urban dwellers, when we began our planning for what we hoped would be a long and happy retirement. 

We had purchased a very rundown house on Vancouver Island several years earlier.  It was sited just above the waters of the Inland Passage, nestled in a township with the “changed to protect our neighbours” name of Mildew Shores.  The township was rustic, the mountains and woods behind it far, far, older and less settled.  In our previous visits, we explored the surroundings, hiking on the Forbidden Plateau, sitting on the rocks overlooking Nymph Falls, searching for sea stars and beached jellyfish at Seal Cove.  We journeyed through the various towns scattered over this part of the island.  Beautiful, but not cit-i-fied. 

On this particular trip things had not started smoothly.  As background, we had finally sought the necessary permits, had the old structure removed, and our new house was going up. We were flying out to meet our builder.  This visit had been planned for some time, our schedules cleared and the plane tickets purchased, but I had not yet booked accommodations.  This had never been an issue before.  What I had failed to consider was that this was our first visit during peak tourist season.  Further, the nearby Canadian Air Force base was holding an airshow.  

When I went online to make reservations, a few days before we were to fly out, I learned there was no room at the inn – at least any of the inns I knew of or could find.  No matter what website I searched, the nearest rooms seemed 80 miles or so away.   The next day, my wife, while we were sitting in a park watching a play, used her cell phone to scan the internet and somewhere out in the ether she found an entry for “The Lake Guest House,” which reported itself to be in the vicinity. 

I certainly had not been able to come up with this listing.  However, I took her phone and immediately sent out an email inquiring as to vacancy.  To my surprise, I received a positive reply.  I booked it gratefully, and thought no more about it. 

We ultimately arrived on the island, a somewhat more eventful trip than usual, as we had two planes fail to be pushed away from the departure gate before equipment problems were identified requiring us to deplane and wait while a less mechanically challenged aircraft was located.  

Nonetheless, we did ultimately did get to the Island, we met with our builder, we visited appliance stores and window installers, ate dinner, and then plugged in the GPS coordinates for the Lake Guest House.  We drove out of town.  After several miles, the roads began to narrow, the trees pushing closer to, and then leaning out and over, the shoulder.  As we traveled on, rising into the foothills, it seemed we no longer passed any houses or other signs of habitation. Darkness was complete. 

While glancing out the driver’s side window, I muttered,  “it looks like the sort of place where Bigfoot abducts people.”  My wife turned from the passenger seat and said “What’s that about big-footed Duck People?”  Well, at a later date, you can read my story about George the Duck.  As for now, I just wish to point out the power of serendipity.  I was utterly unaware of British Columbia’s connection with Sasquatch as of this trip.  As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, “it’s always something.”

science by dummies

Sasquatch

 

As a life-long urban Midwesterner as well as a recent part time resident of Vancouver Island, I have become very taken with the people, creatures, places and things of the Pacific North West, particularly those in British Columbia. 

Consider the Sasquatch.   I wasn’t aware that the word itself comes from the Halkomelem, a First Nations people living in British Columbia, one of the several Salish tribes. “Sasquatch” is the Anglicized offspring of the Halkomelem word “sa’sq’ets.”  The Halkomelem are one of the many different Pacific North West tribes with legends of giant “hairy men,” or “wild men.”  Belief in such creatures is not restricted, though, to the Pacific North West.  A quick hunt on the internet[i] will show similar legends abound everywhere – there are tales of Yetis in the Himalayas, Yowies in Australia, Almas in central Asia and the Maricoxi in South America.   All these creatures are big, furry and elusive.  

So, what’s with this?  Why are there reports from such disparate places, all alluding to secretive, powerful, and mystical beings?  One possibility is that all the world’s peoples need creation myths, and magical experiences, so these tales are manufactured to help explain how a tribe or clan came to be; to help fill a communal or spiritual need.  Another possibility is that there are very large and hairy hominids out there with whom we just haven’t yet made contact.  

Let me return to the BC local boy, the Sasquatch.  The early Pacific NW legends treated the “Sasquatch” as giant, possibly supernatural, creatures living on mountain peaks and in the high woods, and coming down to raid fish traps for food or, amongst those tribes with a more pessimistic world view, to grab and eat the odd warrior or child.  These tribal people seemingly are able to just accept the idea that such beings exist, along with other creatures such as thunderbirds and trickster ravens, and everyone gets on with their lives.  One tribe, the Sts’Ailes, sum it up nicely.  They affirm that the Sasquatch are real, that they speak the tribe’s own language, but that the Sasquatch choose to avoid white men.  

An interesting point, this last one.  It is we white imperialist invaders who, upon entering new lands, make a big production out of the reported existence of such creatures.  Sasquatch only began getting traction beyond local tribes when a Canadian writer, Indian Agent J. W. Burns, started writing stories about them in the late 1920s.  Mr. Burns ultimately published 50 separate articles.   

Similarly, the Yeti, long chronicled in Himalayan myth and culture, only came to the world’s attention in the 19th and 20th centuries, when British surveyors, explorers, and mountain climbers wrote of sightings or findings.  The “Abominable Snowman” tag came in 1921 from Henry Newman, apparently a Brit living in Calcutta and known for writing a popular column for the Calcutta newspaper The Statesman, under the pen name of “Kim.”  The appellation apparently came from a deliberate mistranslation of a term used by the Sherpa guides who had been leading a British army officer around on a mountain surveying trip.  

Ditto with the Yowie in Australia.  Long part of the aboriginal culture, Australia’s Yowie, or “Hairy Man of the Wood” first came to a broader audience after Britain’s invaded the land of Oz with its excess convicts and their keepers.  Certainly the Yowie were mentioned in the 1870s within the pages of Australian Town and Country Journal.   A few years later, “amateur naturalist” Henry James McCooey first reported that he spotted such beings, and then offered to capture one and bring it to the Australian Museum, for the tidy sum of £40 (about two years worth of wages at the time). 

What are we to gather from these histories?  I see it as indigenous people tell interlopers about local legends, said indigenous people having lived with same for extended periods of time and not having bothered to collect, tame, exterminate or do anything about or with said creatures.  The interlopers then make a big deal out of it, chasing through the woods, snow banks or Outback in hopes of a sighting. 

That is certainly what occurred in the U.S.  “Sasquatch,” a/k/a Bigfoot, sightings became big business in the 1970’s.  Suddenly they were everywhere, with reports of Sasquatch popping up all over the country, and not just in the forested and mountainous states.  Researchers searched, and groups coalesced, seeking to locate evidence of the creatures.  Blurry photographs, gigantic tracks, tufts of fur and scat were found.  Unfortunately, none were conclusive.  The physical evidence failed to survive scientific inspection.  Genetic analysis of purported Sasquatch hair and scat samples all proved to be from bear, cow, raccoon, human or other known sources.  

People being what they are, a number of hoaxes were also uncovered.  Photographs were shown to be faked.  Several “Sasquatch hunters” claimed to have actual Sasquatchs, which they would reveal to the world for money, but these “hunters” always failed to come through at the last moment.  One poor soul actually died for his art.  A 44 year old gentleman from Kalispell, Montana, was run over one evening in 2012 after he, with the urging of his buddy, dressed himself up in a camouflage “Ghillie Suit” in order to disguise himself as a Sasquatch, and then jumped out onto a nearby highway, promptly being run over by a startled driver.  

In my desultory research of the Sasquatch, I came across the “Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization,” which hosts a website to collect and compile Sasquatch sightings and related reports (including auditory events, such as the howl of a large and unknown creature, usually at night).  See www.bfro.net.  The site lists Sasquatch sightings and reports in 49 of the 50 U.S. states (only Hawaii lacks a Sasquatch), and in 7 of the 10 Canadian provinces, plus the Yukon Territory (New Brunswick, PEI, and Nova Scotia are equally bereft, as are Nunavit and the Northwest Territory).  

The website numbers are interesting.  The State of Rhode Island, all 1200 square miles of it, has five recorded Sasquatch reports.  Oddly, at least to me, British Columbia has only a 130 sightings reported, notwithstanding that it is the ancestral home of the Sasquatch, while Michigan, my home state, has 206 such reports, even though it is a mere one-eighth the size of British Columbia.  Finally, what really caught my eye is the fact that four of the B.C. Sasquatch sightings occurred within 40 miles of our Mildew Shores home, two in fact were reported in the town from which we get our pizza delivered.  Hmmm. 

So, are there Sasquatches?  I certainly don’t know.  I can think of many logical reasons why Sasquatch should not exist, if evolution is a correct explanation of how life has come to be.  Certainly, there are no large hominids other than us in North America, or in Australia, or in the Himalayas.  Great apes, for those who believe Sasquatch to be such a creature, only live in warm climes to the best of my knowledge.  Perhaps most significantly, the ecological niche for such creatures – large, mountain/forest-dwelling, omnivorous, strong and agile - is already filled; with bears.  

I would also expect fossil evidence of the forbearers of such a creature, and I do not think that any such traces have been found, unlike hominids such as Neanderthal, Java Man, Peking Man and the like.  I am aware that some Sasquatch investigators have argued that the creatures are a relic population of Gigantopithecus, an extinct ape-like creature that lived in China, Viet Nam and India.   Maybe.  But what little I understand about these particular fossils are that Gigantopithecus remains are very incomplete; their predicted weight, 1200 pounds, was such it is unlikely they could have been bipedal, instead walking on their arms like orangutans; and their diet, based upon their teeth and jaws, consisted of bamboo or similar very coarse foliage.  Again, warm climes and specialized food not found in the areas in which Sasquatch, Yeti and Yowie now are believed to hang out. 

However, I would be delighted if a Sasquatch should walk onto my porch in Mildew Shores, and at least leave behind a tuft of hair, scat, or, my preference, a selfie taken with me along with my memories of a two hour chat on the origin of species, lubricated with a gin and tonic or two and perhaps a skunk cabbage appetizer.   Such an occurrence, if documented, would be celebrated by the scientific world as well as by those less so oriented.  At present, with nothing to analyze, scientists can have little to say on whether Sasquatch exist.  However, they would gladly see such a creature, for what this would bring to our understanding of life in general.  So, for those of you who truly believe in Sasquatch, good for you.  Please find one.  The lessons such a discovery could teach about evolution, adaptation in how life fills environmental opportunities, and how a breeding population of such beings avoided discovery until now would be amazing. 

Me, I’m thinking bears. 

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[i] I cheerfully acknowledge I typically begin my natural sciences research at Wikipedia, as I’ve found its footnoted resources both support the articles in which they are found, and these resources appear representative of the field covered. I'm also not getting paid for this. Gimme a break.